


universe won't wait for you

by ErinNovelist



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bad Matchmaking, F/M, Humor, Hunk is a Realist, Keith and Lance are adorable, M/M, Matchmaking, Pidge is a little shit, Romance, Shiro (Voltron) is a Mess, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, and in towels, mentions of nudity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-10-06 20:44:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10344207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinNovelist/pseuds/ErinNovelist
Summary: Shiro didn’t know how he hadn’t seen it before. These two helpless space boys were obviously in love with each other, and they were both oblivious to it.Shiro smiled to himself as the rest of the team carried on their teasing, in the dark of his newfound revelation.If kissing was what Pidge wanted,he thought.Then Operation Get Keith and Lance Together has begun.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what happened. Honestly.

“I’m just saying, you could shoot better if you trim your turns down.” Keith ambled into the kitchen with Lance hot on his heels, dark hair plastered against his forward after a joint training session. “All the extra movement doesn’t give you time to aim, and you just have to close your eyes, point, and hope you make the shot.”

“And all I’m hearing is that you doubt my _amazing_ sharpshooting skills,” Lance snapped, wiping his face down with the collar of his shirt. “I was a champion trap shooter back on Earth." 

Shiro glanced up from his spot at the table, staring distantly at a bowl of space goo, as Hunk and Pidge tinkered with some metal contraption beside him, all three nearly done with their lunch just as the Rivals™ made their grand entrance. Dispatched to a mission the day before, returning later when most of the team had already retired to their beds, Allura had given Keith and Lance the morning off, but it seemed that the Red and Blue Paladins had a different say in the matter. 

“I thought you guys were sleeping,” Shiro said, arching an eyebrow with an inquiring stare.

“I was _trying_ ,” Lance protested as he settled into a chair, flicking his hand towards Keith in a quick gesture. “But _someone_ was banging on my door at ass o’clock in the morning asking me to spar.”

A light pink dusted the tips of his ears as Keith whirled around to face Lance, eyes flashing wildly under the bright kitchen lights. “ _You_ asked me last night to wake you up!”

“I didn’t mean before the rooster crows, farm boy!” Leaning back, Lance interlaced his fingers behind his head and slumped low in his seat, the perfect picture of tired, teenage boy. “Your definition of early and mine are very, _very_ different.”

Keith, having grabbed a bowl and spork from the cabinet, was busy making love to the food dispenser as he sputtered, “I-I don’t live on a farm, Lance!”

Shiro just laughed, shaking his head. “Alright, let’s cool it, cadets. One peaceful morning is all I ask.”

Pidge snorted over the rim of her cup, sipping the coffee-equivalent alien juice that Coran had procured on their latest visit to the Space Mall. Shiro pressed his lips into a resolute expression, knowing that their tech guru needed her daily cup of java like gasoline in a car—a full tank to put her in drive—but that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it. Pidge with a little caffeine in her system turned into a wonderful, functional human being. Pidge with a little _too much_ caffeine in her system turning into a Mile-A-Minute Little Shit™ (as Lance had taken to calling her, much to Shiro’s dismay).

“Calm your tits, Dad,” she told him. “This is their peaceful morning.” Shiro quirked an eyebrow at her words, leveling her with an _are-you-shitting-me?_ glare that had her sinking lower in her seat and hiding her face in her coffee cup. 

“Pidge’s right,” Hunk said, not even paying attention to his friend’s antics, eyes fixated on the task at hand. He held a screwdriver in one hand, poking at a twisted piece of metal, but Shiro wasn’t sure what he hoped to accomplish. “Lance only teases the people he likes.”

“I-I don’t like Keith!” Lance squawked indignantly from the other side of the table. Keith choked on a sporkful of goo, eyes bulging as a hint of fear crawled across his face, and couldn’t even form a response. “He’s annoying and has a _mullet_. I’d never go out with him!”

 “You’re pretty hard on the eyes yourself,” Keith retorted in a low growl as he slipped into the chair beside Shiro.

“What would you know about pretty things, Keith?” 

“Enough to have good taste.” A spark ignited in Keith’s eyes, burning low as anger bubbled and toiled beneath his skin like a living thing, and Shiro placed a soothing hand on his shoulder, trying to smother the flare before it could kindle into a raging fire.

“ _Ugh_.” Pidge smacked her hand against the table, rattling the dinnerware and catching everyone’s attention. “You two fight like an old married couple.”

Shiro often pondered how fast blood could drain from a human face when faced with a particularly terrifying, traumatizing, or humiliating experience, and he thought Lance and Keith made an impressive show. Faces pale and eyes wide, lips drawn tight as they stammered and stuttered out wordless excuses, sputtered squeaks and strangled squawks, the two could only stare at Pidge with tremulous horror.

Shiro couldn’t stop himself. A low chuckle started in the back of his throat, growing louder and louder, until the belly-aching, shoulder-heaving, heart-throbbing laughter was reverberating through the entire kitchen. Above the noise, he could hear Pidge’s high giggles and Hunk’s distant chortles, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so carefree and happy. All he knew was that it had been quite a long while, and it was most desperately needed. 

“Honestly, just kiss and make-up already,” Pidge said, and the laughter continued.

Shiro took a moment to check on Keith and Lance, hoping that they weren’t too frustrated with the good-natured jests that their friends sent their way. Usually the two could take the jokes about their “budding relationship” (as Pidge liked to refer to it as) or their rivalry, as they spent most of their free time bickering amongst themselves or sparring one another—practically joined at the hip and becoming closer the more time they spent together.  However, Shiro always feared that one day they’d take the teasing too far and actually upset the two, but from the looks of things, everyone was fine so far.

More than fine, actually.

 _Huh?_ Shiro thought to himself.

Keith had his head ducked low, elbow propped on the edge of the table as he cradled his chin in his hand, while lazily eating his goo and sipping from his water packet. Lance was much the same as he had buried his face between his fingers, splayed wide over his eyes and ears as if he could hide himself from the chaos around him. However, Shiro caught the soft, subtle smiles around a spork that Keith flashed towards Lance when he thought no one was looking, cheeks dusted pink and a certain emotion in his eyes that Shiro couldn’t quite place, and occasionally, Lance peeked out from beneath his fingers, meeting Keith with his own smile and softness.

_The way those two are looking at each other…._

Why hadn’t Shiro seen it before? It was like they knew a secret that might burn the world if it was told, but neither would take the step to share it—a private moment that only they could enjoy. The way those two looked at each other—it’s how Shiro’s parents looked at one another, the same smile that Commander Holt flashed his wife over video chat one night, the same one Shiro had seen Monica give Chandler on that century-old sitcom that Matt stockpiled for the three-month Kerberos voyage.  

 _They like each other_ , Shiro realized. _But they haven’t done anything about it_.

He can tell by the way they avoided each other, never meeting the other’s eyes head-on. Eye contact was dangerous, Keith had once told him, and should only be reserved for murder and falling in love because if the age-old stories about “eyes being the window to the soul” were true, then the only time you should see someone’s soul was if you were watching it come alive or snuffing it out. (It had been such a random observation for the younger man to make, but Shiro was proud to announce that the Red Paladin became quite the philosopher when he was drunk on Nunvil.)

The fact that they refused to meet one another’s gaze told a tall tale. Let alone, Shiro had never once seen them be physically affectionate, use kind words and soft voices with each other, or any of the other things that couples might do. He didn’t know how he hadn’t seen it before. These two helpless space boys were obviously in love with each other, and they were both oblivious to it. 

Shiro smiled to himself as the rest of the team carried on their teasing, in the dark of his newfound revelation. _If kissing was what Pidge wanted_ , he thought. _Then Operation Get Keith and Lance Together has begun._

_*_

“They like each other,” Shiro told Pidge as she tinkered with the tech Coran had gifted to her while cleaning out the upper suites. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.”

Pidge grunted, reaching blindly for the wrench behind her as her hands grasped at empty space. “I just… Would you mind hand— _Thank you_.” She went back to the project at hand, twisting bolts as she talked. “Don’t feel bad about not seeing it. Even if you were the last one of all of us to notice, at least you beat the two losers in question.”

“Well that’s something, I guess,” he commented wryly.

“I’m surprised you even picked up on it at all. Though, if anyone knows something about oblivious idiots, it’d be you.”

 “What’s that supposed to mean?”

 Pidge snorted. “Oh nothing, nothing.”

 Shiro bit his lip, chewing thoughtfully. “Hmm… So how do we get them together?” 

There was a sharp _clack!_ as Pidge dropped her tool on the ground, the metal banging against the tile floor, as she stared up at Shiro with panicked eyes. “No, no, what’d you just say?”

 “How do we get them together?” He quirked a brow high in confusion. “Why, you don’t want to?”

 "Oh _dear God_ , do you hate me that much?” Pidge asked, eyes wide and mouth furrowed in a thin line. “I already deal with two idiots? Do you want to make them into lovesick idiots too?!”

 “Pidge, I don’t think it’ll be that bad—”

Pidge ran a grease-stained hand through her messy fringe, glasses falling low over her nose. “And _gah_ , there’ll be hugging, and kissing, and the sex, _oh god the sex_ —”

“Pidge!” Shiro shouted, scandalized.

 “They’re gonna fuck!” Pidge replied, traumatized.

 Both stared at one another in horror, eyes wide and mouths open, like they couldn’t believe what the other was suggesting. Silence lingered between them for a few seconds as they came to terms with the situation of just what would happen if they got Lance and Keith together. There were many pros and cons that would follow—and Shiro would absolutely ( _I mean it, Shiro, you have no fucking choice in the matter_ ) have to have the Sex Talk™ with the two if they did end up in relationship—but in the end, it only came down to one thing.

 “They’d be happy,” he told her softly, a wobbly smile on his face, and _the fucking puppy dog eyes._ “Don’t you want your friends to be happy?”

 Pidge stared at him for a moment longer, scanning his face for any give or loophole that might help her, but when she found none, she threw herself across her worktable. Tools and other trinkets crashed to the ground with loud metallic _clangs, clanks,_ and _clunks_. She let out a long, drawn-out groan and banged her fists against the back of her head repeatedly.

 “You’re ruining my life, Shiro!” Her voice was muffled by the table.

 Shiro merely laughed, crossing his arms against his chest, and leaned against the edge. “Don’t you think that’s just a little overdramatic?”

 “I’ll help you, but let it be said for the record that I hate you _so much_ right now.”

 “Really, Pidge?”

 “So. Much.”

 

*

 

Hunk was no problem.

“Sure I’ll help,” he said, flourishing a screwdriver in the air (and god, after the Sex Talk™ with Keith and Lance, Shiro was going to have to talk to Hunk and Pidge about Tool Safety™). “Lance never shuts up about Keith anyway, so it should be pretty easy.”

Shiro leaned against the doorframe, cocking his head to the side. “He talks about Keith?”

Hunk clenched the screwdriver between his teeth and bent over the panel he had open on the Yellow Lion, connecting two wires together as he spoke, “’Ell, yeah, I ‘ean…He could ‘ax ‘oetry about dat ‘ullet.”

 Shiro pondered the revelation, lost in his own reverie, as Hunk finished his corrections and closed the panel on the Lion. “I didn’t know that.”

 “Well he _is_ my best friend,” Hunk said, pulling a dirty rag out of his back pocket and wiping his fingers off. “Figures I should know something about it, right? Besides, doesn’t Keith talk about Lance too?”

 Shiro shrugged helplessly. “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t talked to him about it.”

 “Why not?” Hunk asked. “You and Keith are like, attached at the hip.”

 A dry laugh fell from Shiro’s mouth. “We used to be, but now….” Hunk look concerned, but Shiro shook it off. “I don’t see him much anymore, only at training and meals really.”

 Hunk pursed his lips into a thin line. “You guys fighting or something?”

 “No.”

 “Then why?” Hunk asked.

 Shiro shrugged again, a smile tugging at his lips, and when he looked at Hunk, despite the lingering sadness, he looked _happy_. “Because he’s been with _Lance_.”

 

*

 

The alarm went off later that evening much to Shiro’s chagrin.

 Hunk, Pidge, and himself were camped out at the end of the hallway of their sleeping quarters, hovering over Pidge’s laptop as she typed lines of code, with a wide vantage point of Lance and Keith’s doors from their hiding spot. All it took was Hunk rerouting a few wires in the hall panels, Pidge’s scary genius, and Shiro’s reluctant approval—and Operation Get Lance and Keith Together was on.

 

 (“That’s a stupid name,” Pidge noted as she typed.

 Shiro glanced up from his spot next to Hunk who was buried in the wall, messing with wiring and other electrics that Shiro was sure Coran would execute them for if he knew they were messing with them. “Well, it’s the best I have, so take it or leave it, Pidge.”

 “I’m just saying, there’s so many good names you could use, and you’re just wasting potential, Shiro.” She adjusted her glasses, peering at him over the rims. “And that’s not a sign of a good leader.”

 He groaned, rubbing the bridge of his nose between his forefingers. “Fine, Pidge, fine. What do you want to call it?”

 She pondered the idea for a few moments, chewing her bottom lip, before her face lightened with a sudden thought. “Klance Klance Revolution!”

 Shiro dropped his head in his hands.)

 

 “You almost ready?” Hunk asked as he placed the panel back on the wall and shoved his handy-dandy screwdriver into his back pocket (and, god damn it, Shiro _really_ needed to have that talk about Tool Safety™ with them.

 Pidge narrowed her eyes as she studied the screen. “Almost. They should both in the shower by now, right Shiro?”

 Shiro sighed and nodded. “Last I checked, the water was running in both of their bathrooms. Look, I still don’t see how this is gonna get them together.”

 “Come on, Shiro,” Pidge muttered. “You know how teenage boys are. Nudity usually does the job.”

 Which, alright, Shiro would admit that nudity helped get the job done—but he wasn’t quite sure what job Pidge had in mind. “I’m just not sure this is going to work.” 

Hunk stared at the screen and nodded. “System’s are go. Coran’s gonna kill us though, you know.”

 “I planned it; I’ve got my escape route.” Pidge typed out a few more lines of code. “Alright, and here… we… go.”

 

The alarms above started blaring instantly, a long, drawn-out roar that reverberated through the hallway, rattling his teeth and stuttering his heartbeat. Normally, they’d be scrambling to get into their armor and rushing to the control room, but as it was a falsa alarm (and Allura and Coran would surely kill them for it), nothing had changed for Lance and Keith. He could hear them scrambling in their bedrooms, rushing out of the shower and fumbling with the doors, and both flew open with a loud _swoosh_ as the two paladins entered the hallway.

 In nothing but their towels.

 (Shiro had to give Pidge credit. He hadn’t thought the plan would work).

 Skin glistening like diamond droplets, Lance and Keith paused in the hallway, facing each other with surprise as they clutched their towels tighter around their waists. Keith’s hair was plastered against his skin, water dripping down his bare, toned chest and into a puddle at his feet, but he didn’t seem to care. He only had eyes for Lance.

 Lance licked his lips, one hand clenching his towel to keep it upright, while the other hand reached towards Keith, shaky fingers brushing the other’s collarbone. Keith made a move towards him, to return the touch or kiss him or _something_ , but the blaring alarm above them continued to wail, and he seemed to come to his senses.

 “We can’t do this right now,” he muttered, more to himself in disappointment, than to Lance.  

 He flashed Lance a small smile before taking off down the hall, towel whipping behind him, and Lance paused for a moment, taking the time to appreciate the view, before following.

 Pidge groaned as they disappeared around a corner and killed the alarms with a few keystrokes. “Well that sucked.”

 Hunk shook his head, a bright smile on his face, as he gestured in the direction Keith and Lance had ran. “What’re you talking about? That worked perfectly. The—”

 “Sexual tension was off the charts, I know.” She buried her hands in her hair, clenching her eyes tight. “But I was hoping for some wet boys kissing or something!”

 "Pidge,” Shiro warned, seriously regretting bringing the younger paladin into the plan.

 “Not for voyeuristic intents or anything, don’t worry, Shiro,” she reassured him, digging into the backpack she had brought along, and pulled out a camera. “Blackmail purposes only. Keith’s built an archive on me, and I need some back-up.”

 Shiro quirked an eyebrow in surprise. “What would Keith have on you?”

 “Oh, _oh_ , I know this, _I know this_.” Hunk cackled, smiling wide and showing teeth. “He knows where you hide your coffee stash from Shiro, doesn’t he?”

 Pidge’s smile slowly faded as she dropped the camera into her lap, turning around to face Hunk. If looks could kill, Hunk would have been cinders by now. Her eyes narrowed, eyebrows lowered, and a cool expression settled across her face. Shiro was still shocked to move, so there was no way he could have protected his fellow paladin from Pidge’s wrath.

 Pidge launched herself at Hunk as the older boy let out a shrill shriek that was even more piercing than the alarms, and they took off down the hallway. Shiro could only watch them disappear, laughter bubbling up within him, and a few giggles slipped out, but ice flooded his veins as the cool voice of Allura whistled past his ears.

 “What do you think you’re doing?”

 “I-It was Pidge’s fault,” he squeaked and took off after his team.

 God, screw Pidge’s wrath. It was Allura he had to watch out for.

 

*

 

“Okay,” Pidge said. “We turn up the temperature in the training room. They’re gonna get so hot, and the clothes—”

 “No, no, no,” Shiro replied, plucking her computer from her hands.

 “H-Hey!” she sputtered, sliding off the stool and chasing after him as he exited her hangar. “You didn’t even listen to what I had to say! The last plan nearly worked!”

 “You’re banned from the plan,” he said.

 “Shiro!”

“Canceled your subscription.”

 “Shiro, you can’t do this.”

 “Deleted your account.”

 “I am the Klance Klance Revolution Champion!”

 “And I’m the Galra Gladiator Champion, but that shit means nothing in space, Pidge.”

 

*

 

Hunk cornered him in his room as he was hiding Pidge’s computer under his mattress. He froze when the door swooshed open, eyes wide as he hunkered down in fear, but he let out a sigh of relief when he noticed it was only the Yellow Paladin.

 “Shiro,” Hunk said.

 “I’m still thinking of the next plan,” he told him, falling back on his haunches. “Preferably something without nudity.”

 “Maybe you should just try talking to Keith,” Hunk suggested. “You guys are really close, and if anyone can convince him that a relationship with Lance… might be _a good thing_ , then you’d be the one to do it.”

 Shiro dropped his hands in his lap, clutching them into tight fists. “He doesn’t talk to me as much anymore,” he admitted in a soft voice. “Maybe before Kerberos, but…”

 Hunk sighed and sat down on the edge of his bed. “Look, I know things were messed up after Kerberos. Keith’s life was kind of a mess. He just lost his best friend, the closest thing to family that he ever had; he got kicked out of the Garrison with nowhere to go; he was forced to live in the desert for a year; and chased conspiracies in his free time… Where was I going with this again?”

 “I think you were trying to cheer me up and not doing a great job,” Shiro commented wryly.

 “Oh yeah, look…” Hunk nudged Shiro with the tip of his boot, flashing him a small smile. “Despite everything that happened, it still shows that you mean the world to Keith. He’d do anything for you, and you know it. So if you told him that it was alright to go after Lance, to sort out how he feels and just _talk to him_ about everything, then he’s probably gonna come around.”

 There was silence between them for a moment before Shiro asked, “You really think it’ll be that easy?”

 Hunk nodded. “I know it.”

 

*

 

It was late in the evening when Shiro knocked on Keith’s door. He’d spent most of the day avoided Allura who stalked the halls for any sign of the paladins who were involved in tripping the alarms, and last he’d heard, she’d laid into Pidge and Hunk already—so it was only a matter of time before he was caught as well. Eyes darting across the corridor, he wrapped his knuckles against Keith’s bedroom door, hoping it was soft enough not to draw Allura’s attention as well as pull the younger paladin from whatever activity he’d chosen to do before settling in for the night.

 The door opened slowly, and a bleary-eyed Keith greeted him with a confused expression, eyebrows furrowed tight and lips pressed into a thin line. “Do you even know what time it is?” he asked.

 Shiro gulped, an apology already on the tip of his tongue and his right foot turned around and ready to run, but he remembered Hunk’s words and swallowed his anxiety down. “I need to talk to you,” he said. “Is now a bad time?”

 “Nah, it’s alright,” Keith told him, but then a dark arm curled around his waist and pulled him away from the dor.

 “Actually,” a voice spoke, and Shiro had to blink to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating because a _shirtless Lance_ now stood behind Keith. “We’re pretty busy right now, so if it’s not important, Shiro, I’m sorry, but can it wait till the morning? Sun’s going down, nude things to do. You know how it is.”

 Keith rolled his eyes at the other boy’s antics, leaning back into Lance’s loose embrace and pressing a soft kiss to his temple. There was a certain ease and comfort to their actions, and something in Shiro’s made his heart stutter and stumble in its beat because this wasn’t the spark of new love but the glowing embers of a strong, _experienced_ one.

 He’d been wrong, he realized. The two of them had always looked at each other like they were meant to be more because _they already were_ —they had been this whole time.

 “I-I,” Shiro began, but the words caught in his throat.

 “I’ll see you in the morning, alright Shiro?” Keith said, wrapping his hand around Lance’s wrist and intertwining their fingers together.

 “I have so many questions,” Shiro said breathlessly.

 “Night, Shiro.” Keith pressed a button, and the door began to slide close.

 But not before Lance shouted, “Oh, and next time you decide to play matchmaker, make sure the people you’re trying to get together aren’t actually, you know, _together!_ ”

 As the door finally shut, Shiro turned on his heel and walked back to his own room, face burning.

 "Shiro?!”

  _Fuck. Allura._

“It was Pidge!” he called over his shoulder and sprinted towards the hangers. Looks like he was sleeping in the Black Lion tonight.

 

*

 

The next morning, he awoke and meandered towards the kitchen, still on the lookout for Allura. Keith, Lance, and Pidge were already huddled around the table, Pidge’s computer in front of them, and whispering furiously among themselves.

“What’re we looking at?” he asked, and Pidge’s head snapped up at the sound of his voice.

 Her eyes were wide, bloodshot and panicked, but a bright smile still shone across her face. ( _God damn it, Shiro_ realized, _I forgot to take her coffee stash away)._ Keith and Lance smothered their own wide grins as they sat down at the breakfast table, digging into their own bowls of goo, their thighs up against each other.

 “Newest mission,” Pidge said proudly and slid Shiro a piece of paper.

 He picked up the paper cautiously, aware of the shit-eating smile growing larger and larger the longer he took. Glancing down quickly, his heart dropped in his stomach.

  _Operation Shallura Shallura (Hips Don’t Lie) has begun._


End file.
